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Hilary Hahn - Retrospective

A piece I record is a piece I love.

Hilary Hahn

On January 19, Hilary Hahn releases Retrospective, an album showcasing all of her recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, along with new, unedited live performance recordings, which provide the full immediacy of the concert experience. The artwork for the album was sourced from Hahn's fans. The LP version was recorded in the rare direct-to-disc technique.

The collection includes at least one track from each of her 12 Deutsche Grammophon albums and live recordings from Hahn's Meistersaal concert in Berlin, an event especially dedicated to her fans. The recording includes the live performance of Mozart's Sonata KV 379, in addition to Max Richter's “Mercy” and Tina Davidson's “Blue Curve of the Earth,” with pianist Cory Smythe, from In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores. The double-disc LP version, which has fewer tracks overall but incorporates some additional favorite tracks, replaces “Blue Curve of the Earth” with the live recording of Mark-Anthony Turnage's “Hilary’s Hoedown,” which is also from her Encores project. In assembling this compilation, she listened to all of her DG recordings from beginning to end and realized that certain movements and pieces resonated particularly strongly with her musical trajectory.

Hahn made her first record at the age of 17: Hilary Hahn Plays Bach. She has gone on to release sixteen more albums on Deutsche Grammophon and Sony, in addition to an Oscar-nominated movie soundtrack and an award-winning recording for children, and win three Grammy awards. This latest release Retrospective references Hahn’s latest decade and a half of recording activity, from age 23 to the current day.

With the double-disc LP of Retrospective Hahn is the first artist to present a direct-to-disc pressing on Deutsche Grammophon since the end of the shellac era. Direct-to-disc is the most artistically challenging recording technique due to the complete absence of editing, which provides the full immediacy of the live concert experience.

For many years, Hahn has received unsolicited works of art from fans of all ages at concerts, which she features on her website and social media. To include her fans in this retrospective and acknowledge their longtime presence in her career, Hahn decided to use fan art for both the cover and the internal booklet. She chose pieces by professional and amateur artists in Turkey, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S., and the artists will be compensated for the use of their work.

Christine Fraser, who drew the cover art says, “Fan art seems like a way to honor a person and to visually say, 'thank-you.' In Hilary's case, she has provided me with such a wonderful array of music that I frequently listen to while drawing or painting, I wanted to show her my appreciation by creating something to convey that message. For me, it's exciting to see an artistic exchange like this, as music has always been a huge influence in my own creative process. I am both honored and inspired by this opportunity and it is an incredible feeling to be part of a collaboration that includes artists of different age groups, with different styles, and from various locations around the world.”

Direct-to-Disc Pressing

Until the 1940s most sound recordings were made by cutting directly to a master disc. With the direct-to-disc recording process used for LP 1 in the present release, Hilary Hahn has confronted the artistic and technical challenge involved in this particular recording technique. This is a technique that is nowadays used extremely rarely, not least because few artists have the requisite ability that such a direct-to-disc recording process necessarily presupposes. With any direct-to-disc recording the microphones are connected to a cutting head. On 8 May 2016, while Hilary Hahn and Cory Smythe were performing works by Mozart, Turnage and Richter in Berlin’s Meistersaal, a stylus was cutting their interpretation directly into the grooves of the master disc. As a result the recording could not be subsequently edited, remixed or modified in any way. The master discs produced by this process then served as the mould for the pressings. This means that every single LP is an identical analogue copy of the original. Direct-to-disc means pure authenticity. In this way Hilary Hahn and Cory Smythe have produced a recording that is an unadulterated and unique expression of their artistry.

Fan Art

A note about the artwork for this album: for decades, I’ve been the happy recipient of “fan art,”original visual art presented to me by concertgoers and longtime fans. I really appreciate the time and creativity they put into their pieces. Because fan art has meant a lot to me over the years, I wanted to highlight it here. With Deutsche Grammophon’s sponsorship, I held a contest through my social media feeds for artwork for this release. The cover and most of the interior images are the result of that contest. The remaining images were given to me previously. I feel so lucky to have the fans that I have. They are a unique, thoughtful, and vivacious bunch, and they propel me forward. I’m glad to have this chance to showcase their contributions. Hilary Hahn